It’s a heady combination: windblown beauty, wantonly wild, and ladies and gentlemen of politics, law, foreign affairs and religion. Perched high on a hillock cradled with sleepy hills and a lake below, there stand our stalwarts under an open sky, chilly and grey, debating the future of the land. Why drive 60 miles out of Islamabad to meet for lunch at a deserted spot? The host, who coined the phrase “laptop warriors” could have celebrated his grandson’s birthday in the Capital. Instead, Ayaz Amir, the local chaudhry, MNA, columnist and intellectual wanted his guests to see the dramatic expanse that nature staged. Are you listening minister of tourism? Mount Dhok Sial calls.
The name Balkasar evokes images of rustic romance, age-old chivalry and immortal love. Chakwal district has produced warriors rising high as generals, air marshals and admirals. Today Chakwalites still swell the rank and file of our armed forces. Ayaz Amir, who began his career as a captain in the army, calls fellow columnists “laptop warriors” because of their war on corruption against the present rulers. Ayaz rates as the “poorest” MNA according to his filing of assets declaration with the election commission. Why then his contempt for those who want a ‘third force’ to come and purge corrupt politicians? I think you have the answer.
“You must write about the ransacking of Pakistan embassy in Kabul when you were the ambassador,” I say to Qazi Humayun, who almost lost his life in the mob attack. He’d rather enjoy the present moment than be reminded of the Kabul-based Rabbani government’s mob attack on September 6, 1995. The Rabbani government (yes, the same Burhanuddin Rabbani you saw in Islamabad recently hugging our biggies) held Pakistan responsible for the Taliban takeover of Herat. An agriculturist standing nearby interjects “Are you kidding? Diplomats, bureaucrats and khakis, retired or serving, will never open their mouths,” he says looking at Humayun, “Were they to do that, nobody would care for the media because these people hold the real stuff and know the truth.”
How true. Indeed, I look around me and see active and retired power horses that have, are and will fuel the engines of this nation till kingdom come. “If only they would speak,” says the agriculturist sage who knows them well, “but they never will, so our last hope is a Pakistani Julian Assange, the author of WikiLeaks!”
While we wait for a desi Assange to arrive, let’s make do with ‘DiploLeaks’ that our foreign ministry doles out to the press euphemistically called “background briefing.” Recently, this newspaper carried a front-page story that many of us may have missed because of its bland headline: “Pakistan finds Biden’s clarifications unrealistic,” (paragraph four was dynamite) conveyed by Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to President Barack Obama.” There were shuddery allegations against America on “violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, disrespect for Islam; much-touted American inner desire to de-fang and destabilise Pakistan.” The official who gave the briefing cautioned the US against “economically squeezing Pakistan, destabilising it and disturbing the societal balance.” His message: "‘Do not try to turn Pakistan into a battlefield’ mentioning incidents in Karachi, Data Darbar bombing, sectarian strife and bomb attacks as part of what could be described as an international conspiracy.” Included in this damning demarche was the donors' snub to Islamabad.
Stop! Look at the date when it was published: Jan 16, 2011. Two days earlier, Zardari had met Obama in Washington. The latter’s words must have been unvarnished, blunt and plainspoken as they’ve been in the past whenever the two have met. Islamabad fired the above stinger missile two days later to equal the score.
The lady who saved Pakistan from being declared a “terrorist state” is Ambassador Syeda Abida Hussain. This was when Nawaz Sharif was in the saddle and she was his envoy in Washington. She had spunk, zing and gutsiness. She told Gen Zia to get lost when he presented her a chador which he asked her to wear while sitting inside the parliament with male members.
Abida was prime ministerial material, but somewhere along the road, she apparently lost her way. Whenever I interviewed her, I was in awe of her. She was our role model in school. Today, there’s nothing to ask her. Her daughter is a PPP senator.
Then there is Nasim Zehra, the talk show host. As she joins our group, guests come up to her and congratulate her for getting the liberal left and the religious right on the same page concerning killing of Salmaan Taseer. They call her bold, brave, and audacious. She is surprised. “I just did my duty in bringing the truth before my viewers by giving both the sides an opportunity to present their objective viewpoints.” Her handling of the delicate subject, especially her conclusion was superb. Nasim is amazed at the silence of the ladies in parliament, including the Speaker, who would not defend fellow MNA Sherry Rehman.
A jolly cleric present at the party weighs in on the ongoing clash between civil society and the clergy. He appears to be a moderate and hence in a minority with his religious brothers. The real clash before me is between the rich and the poor. The privileged classes – politicians, feudal lords, bureaucrats and businessmen live in luxury while the working staff live in abject poverty and deprivation. I notice the stark difference on our drive back to Islamabad on the motorway. Before we enter the Capital, we pass miles and miles of population plunged in utter darkness. All I can see are ghostly silhouettes of homes standing in sullen silence. Not a shred of light escapes through these homes. The January night is cold and cruel. How must these people feel, I wonder. How do they keep warm? I ask myself. Far in the horizon, we see a flood of lights, as if there exist two worlds in close proximity – heaven and hell on earth. The glare of lights in Islamabad is blinding when one travels from the darkness to cross over to the other side. It’s at the discretion of the water and power ministerty, as to who gets electricity. Someone knows well that millions can be made through sale of plots where streets are shamelessly showered in light as if they were avenues in Manhattan. Hard core corruption is everywhere today.
“Youth will be instruments of change,” is the prediction by a Pakistani-Canadian psychic. The young I meet at lunch are our last hope – say technocrats like Harvard law school graduate Salman Raja.
Wordsworth put it best when he wrote on the French revolution: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/ But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! Times/ In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways/ Of custom, law, and statute, took at once/ The attraction of a country in romance!”
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